Solar, Wind, and Alternative Energy Sources

A new revolution in solar power is set to bring energy from the sun into the night. A major barrier to large-scale solar power is having a way to store the sun’s energy so that it can be used at night or when skies are cloudy.

Solar power has historically been restricted to being a daytime source of energy as conventional photovoltaic solar panels produce energy only when the sun is shining. Storing solar energy for use at night has been expensive and inefficient. However, the Massachussettes Institute of Technology, or MIT, has announced that they have developed a simple, inexpensive, and very efficient solar energy storage process.

“This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power…Read More.